Focus on Practice - Part Two: Student Engagement and Questioning
Introduction:
In a recent interview, Bill Gates was questioned about what makes a great teacher. His response was:
Bill Gates: Clearly, there’s something about engaging the student. As I’ve watched the videos of great teachers, they are constantly looking out and seeing that the kids are starting to fidget. They’re bringing up the energy level. They’re calling on this kid. They’re using examples.
It seems that whenever we look at student engagement in the classroom, one of the key components of promoting this engagement centers around the topic of questioning and its role as an integral part of the lesson.
This quote from a research article (accessible thru this wiki) ties the ideas of student engagement and questioning together very succinctly:
Teaching is about designing, creating, and inventing intellectually challenging work for students--work that engages students and is so compelling that students persist when they experience difficulty and feel satisfaction, indeed delight, when they successfully accomplish the challenge (Schlechty 1997). Whether thinking skills are taught directly or integrated into the curriculum, the goal is to develop students who question, are critical thinkers, and are creative. Questions that stretch students' minds--the kind that invite students' curiosity, provoke thinking, and instill in students a sense of wonder--keep students engaged. In this article, the authors describe some effective strategies using teacher-initiated questions to enhance student learning by developing critical thinking skills, correcting student misunderstanding, providing feedback for students, and enlivening class discussion.
The links below will help you with increasing student engagement through questioning:
A. Questioning Techniques in the Classroom This document provides various questioning strategies to use during a lesson to increase the level of student engagement.
B. Effective Questioning
This article looks at putting together varied leveled questions in your lessons.
The study focuses on discussion questions, which can be used as catalysts for student thinking, classroom conversation,and dialogue. Another form of questions looked at is guiding questions, which identify course, unit, or lesson learning targets for student. Guidelines for creating high-quality guiding questions are included in the Content Planning Mini-coaching manual. Be sure to check out the Question Chart graphic organizer that can be used for planning the questions to use during your lessons.
Discussion Webs are a great way to engage students in meaningful conversation and spark critical thinking at the same time. Included: Tons of ideas for active discussions across the curriculum and across the grades!
Focus on Practice - Part Two: Student Engagement and Questioning
Introduction:
In a recent interview, Bill Gates was questioned about what makes a great teacher. His response was:
Bill Gates: Clearly, there’s something about engaging the student. As I’ve watched the videos of great teachers, they are constantly looking out and seeing that the kids are starting to fidget. They’re bringing up the energy level. They’re calling on this kid. They’re using examples.
It seems that whenever we look at student engagement in the classroom, one of the key components of promoting this engagement centers around the topic of questioning and its role as an integral part of the lesson.
This quote from a research article (accessible thru this wiki) ties the ideas of student engagement and questioning together very succinctly:
A. Questioning Techniques in the Classroom
This document provides various questioning strategies to use during a lesson to increase the level of
student engagement.
B. Effective Questioning
This article looks at putting together varied leveled questions in your lessons.
The study focuses on discussion questions, which can be used as catalysts for student thinking, classroom conversation,and dialogue.
Another form of questions looked at is guiding questions, which identify course, unit, or lesson learning targets for student. Guidelines for creating high-quality guiding questions are included in the Content Planning Mini-coaching manual.
Be sure to check out the Question Chart graphic organizer that can be used for planning the questions to use during your lessons.
C. Closed vs. Open Questioning
This video demonstrates a teacher's use of both closed and open ended during a lesson.This link is a transcript of this video lesson:
D. Going Beyond Questioning - with Discussion Webs
Discussion Webs are a great way to engage students in meaningful conversation and spark critical thinking at the same time. Included: Tons of ideas for active discussions across the curriculum and across the grades!